Music Box Figures
by SSRandomness
Summary: They never spoke of it, whatever it was. There was an invisible stitch of twine between them, humming with something neither dare mention, but that both were acutely— and at times painfully— aware of (as, of course, was everyone else). One-shot. Nightcrawler/Storm, one year post the events of "Last Stand".


While this is not my first X-Men one-shot, it is the first I've had the nerve to post, so I'm quite new to this fandom. But already, I'm enjoying being a part of it!

Set in the X-men movieverse (I know, they're not the greatest marvel movies ever, but I still love 'em) about a year post "Last Stand". Short and super sweet. ;P

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Music Box Figures

They often walked the grounds together, a good few feet apart. Kurt, with his tail swishing amiably behind him, trailing over brush and weed; and Ororo with her hands clasped behind her back and the ever-present air of regality and calm set firmly upon her shoulders. They spoke of inconsequential things, or things pertaining to the school, and stopped regularly to speak and play with the children. They'd help with any studying, and, occasionally, play some small and genial prank on Logan or one of the older charges.

When there was no danger room session set for any given Saturday morning, they could always be found there practicing as a pair, silent and intent on their work. They would sit nearly every evening, at some late hour or other, reading quietly on opposite sides of the library in two very separate cones of light, worlds away and yet only feet apart. Or perhaps it was the other way around.

Though these routines were harmless and quite open, the students were not ignorant of their true meaning. Ororo found herself distressed on countless occasions by the whispering voices of girls and boys as she passed them in the hall. She worried how her image may be tarnished by these unprofessional quirks in her behavior. The children were far more open with Kurt on the matter, chiding him up front rather than whispering behind his back. It was, she knew, a testament to Kurt's congenial personality, warm and infectious. Still, their apprehension and respect for her sometimes, she wished, would suit Kurt just as well: it embarrassed her to see his sheepish smile and downcast eyes, to watch him evade the jabs as though they were tiny grenades thrown directly at him, whereas Ororo was fortunate only to hear them herself when they exploded behind her. But, irksome as it often was, that did not mean she was willing to cease any and all involvement between the two of them.

Kurt was something stable in her life, and yet liquid, so that she could count on his presence as a stalwart friend, and yet always find something intriguing in his lithe movements and wily smile. In this way, he could remain both open-book and enigma all at once. That suited Ororo just fine.

Kurt loved the children, and he loved to teach. These were things that did not surprise him so much as his talent therein did. He was good with the children, and he easily adapted to teaching. Rare were the things that Kurt Wagner had ever been able to slip comfortably into like a shadow in the night. He could count them all on one three-fingered hand, he guessed. But here, in this place, everything felt natural and homey, and he was so relieved. For it was not the children, the teaching, or the lure of the X-men that called him to stay at Xavier's school. And he had worried, for a brief time, that he would be living a lie: pretending to enjoy things that would not— could not— suit him, all for the sake of her. But he was lucky, so lucky, to find himself happy in this new life, not just because he was near her, or because he had the good fortune to look on her each and every day. He had something here, something tangible, that he could dwell on as his anchor, his reason to remain at the school. Something less obvious and sensual as her.

They never spoke of it, whatever it was. There was an invisible stitch of twine between them, humming with something neither dare mention, but that both were acutely— and at times painfully— aware of (as, of course, was everyone else). There were things they knew, understood in each other's eyes; in the fleeting brush of skin on skin, in the poignant silence between shared smiles. And yet there were things Kurt and Ororo did not quite grasp, or were simply not willing to lift their eyes and see. They were neither of them in the dark, but neither of them quite in the sun, either. Dancing on the edge of it all like little music box figures, twirling on the curve of a disk, attempting to remain untouched but wobbling dangerously at every turn.

Preparing for the big open house caused quite the hubbub throughout the mansion. Everyone, young and old, was busy running about the halls and making everything glow with pride, so as to burnish a shining example of their beloved school into the hearts and minds of family, friends, and prospective pupils. A local farmer (whose wife resembled a pig more than his own swine did, thus his obvious mutant sympathies) gave Ororo permission to bring her students to the fields that had fallen to seed that year, and let them pick all the wildflowers they could find. Truckloads and truckloads arrived at the institute gates in the wake of their picking frenzy, and it took days for the children to array them all around the enormous house, proudly carrying bundles of flowers twice their size and leaving grassy trails wherever they tread. Ororo found herself abuzz with the excitement as well, deriving her happiness from the children's happiness and allowing the influx of nature throughout the institute to calm her frayed nerves and keep her mind off the stress of the upcoming to-do.

She found herself humming, arraying a large bouquet of Black-Eyed Susans in a vase in the first classroom off of the foyer, listening to the squeal of little voices and the patter of feet back and forth from the door to the stairs and back out again. She was adding the final few blooms to her arrangement, feeling her chest rise and fall in the warmth of the sun. It poured through the window, touching the dust particles that wafted from the carpet, rising and falling in tireless spirals.

All at once, Ororo felt the air pinch in around her and watched as the golden dust trails billowed blue. He was very close behind her, and she could smell the earthen scent of him, even through the brimstone cloud. In her peripherals she watched one blue hand reach out and remove a Black-Eyed Susan from its place on the marble tabletop. She looked ahead, continuing to arrange her bouquet, and listened to the soft snick of his nails as they snapped the stem behind her. Kurt's hands were as gentle as a wave and as light as lambskin as he placed the flower behind her ear. He felt a spark run through his hands as his fingers grazed the edge of her pinna, and his whole body sang like a tuning fork, right down to the tip of his vibrating tail. He leaned just the barest breadth closer to her, enough to tickle several white hairs on her head to motion, and then he urged himself away in a dark flash, back out to the garden and the wheelbarrows full of flower garlands being pushed round by crimson-cheeked children.

She let her eyes shudder closed briefly as he went; the back of her head still warm from his breath, the air around her body cooling in his absence. She heard Logan sighing as he passed the room, eyeing her dizzy smile and the light touch of her fingers to the flower behind her ear. But Ororo didn't care. And the more she thought about it, the wider she smiled. She was through worrying, and fretting, and creasing her forehead with cares that needn't be. But there were tasks at hand. If only for now, she would set those thoughts aside and focus on preparing for an evening of parents and new students, and finding all the places where she could hang garlands in an effort to lighten the daunting size and appearance of Xavier's enormous home.

Ororo knew, when the time came, that it would be her job to instigate what needed to be begun. Kurt, ever the charmer, was always there with a smile or the gesture of a novel tail, or a trinket that Ororo would treasure more than she ever let on. It was Kurt who gave and Ororo who received, and she knew that, when the time was right, it was she who would become giver and Kurt, receiver. It seemed only natural. They spent their days dancing to and fro, changing their pace and their step so as always to keep moving away from one another. Always spinning in opposite directions, but never straying far.

It was there in Kurt's eyes as they walked through the gardens that night; Ororo sighing off the vestiges of stress the evening's open house had brought and breathing in the fresh realization of success in a plan that had gone off without a single hitch. She could see it in the way Kurt carried himself: shuffling his toes along the red gravel path, letting his arms hang loosely at his side and his tail follow drowsily behind him. And it was there in his bright yellow eyes- an exhaustion; a silent end to their ceaseless games and a plea as quiet as the breeze through his hair. A plea Ororo understood, an exhaustion she knew all too well, and an end that she felt slamming her in the gut like a sucker punch as they walked.

She had her hands in his hair before he really understood that their stars were finally aligning, and her lips blazed against his— their touch almost unbearable—burning skin held to ice. If he held her any tighter, he feared she might shatter. Of course, he knew, he had always been hers, lashed to her before she even gave him her name. And her touch nearly broke him. His body was screaming to fuse itself to her, let their skin burn together and never tear nor bleed, but bond them as one in the night, whole and blue and bronze all over.

It took every ounce of her strength to let him go: not to beg, or plead, or show him the true depth of her embrace. And it took every ounce of his strength to hold her gaze and her hands at the same time, and keep himself from removing what useless rags adorned them both. But she was smiling then, and the burning ache subsided in them both to the slow ebb of contented embers, humming and singing with the whistling wind. He grinned at her, and pulled her close, and they set off down the path again. His tail looped itself round her waist like a happy sash, and she grazed the tip idly with her fingers. From then on, they walked in the garden only at night, never far apart, with the sky singing songs of forever softly in their ears.

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Thanks for reading, I appreciate it! If you'd like to review, like, comment, or even flame, that would be lovely too. :)

Until next time,

-Sephora


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